In order to beautify lawns, gardens and other outdoor grounds, natural mulching systems, such as natural bark, wood products, peat, and the like are well known for mulching around trees, plants and other items. Although these natural mulching systems inhibit weed and grass growth and present a manicured appearance, these systems require continual care and replenishment. Also, the initial preparation and continuing care are expensive so many trees go unprotected for at least some time, or the mulch is not maintained. Either situation leaves the trees subject to damage when grass and weeds growing near the trees are trimmed or mowed.
Moreover, natural mulching systems must be periodically replenished due to both natural and mechanical degradation; e.g., hard rains, winds and even watering may flush away the mulch, leaving the ground and root system thereunder subject to erosion from water force and other environmental conditions. Certain natural mulch systems may also tend to hold water themselves and not pass it to the underlying roots or drain the water away from the roots by capillary action.
Accordingly, synthetic mulch systems have been used around trees and plants to inhibit weed and grass growth near the trees and plants in order to eliminate the need for close-in trimming and mowing. Preferably, these synthetic mulch systems present a desired aesthetic appearance but most importantly, these systems must be able to transmit air and water to the underlying root systems and not draw water away from the roots, which could kill the trees and plants.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,396,731 Byrne describes a recycled rubber mulching system, which includes mulch pads for protecting trees and plants and their root systems. These mulch pads protect trees from damage that may be caused flexible line trimmers used by property owners to trim grass and weeds from around tree bases. Trimming too closely around a tree trunk can cause a trimmer line to contact the trunk and destroy the tree bark and may even kill the tree. Likewise, mowing too closely to trees and plants may cause harm, particularly if the mower strikes a tree and destroys its bark. Similarly, trimming too closely to other objects, such as siding, posts, grave markers and the like can also damage those objects. Thus, the Byrne mulch pad protects trees and other objects from trimming lines and mowers while simultaneously providing aeration and water to underlying root systems but preventing weed and grass growth under the mulch pad.
Although Byrne teaches controlling color and sheen in a mulch pad in order to produce the mulch pad with a natural mulch appearance, the Byrne mulch pad is one color depending on the coloring agent used when manufacturing the mulch pad. Not only does this present consumers with limited choices, but single-color mulch pads are not cost effective. More specifically, some businesses and homeowners may desire brown mulch pads while others may prefer red mulch pads and still others desire a different color to achieve various landscape effects. Thus, the typical home improvement or lawn and garden store must stock a supply of each color of mulch pad. Each stack of different colored mulch pads requires use of finite floor space. Since floor space is limited and includes inherent costs to use, the consumer is faced with a limited selection of mulch pads—perhaps a choice of two colors—or the consumer must pay more for the store to utilize additional floor space to stock a greater selection of mulch pads.
A multi-colored mulch pad is needed in the lawn and garden care industry to utilize premium floor space more efficiently to reduce costs and to increase consumer choice.